Posted By Kirk Mitchell On September 21, 2013 @ 2:04 pm In City of Denver | No Comments

Jennifer “Jenny” Douglas was a small girl for a 17-year-old.

But the ballerina’s size was likely due to her fitness. She was known to work out hours on end in the summer.

Jennifer Douglas, 17(Courtesy of Familes of Victims of Homicide and Missing Persons)

Jenny was 5-feet tall and weighed only 87 pounds. She had blue eyes and blonde hair.

Jenny was at home at 2575 Albion Street when she called her mother, Ann, at work around 10 a.m. on July 16, 1984.

Jenny let her mother know that she was going for a bike ride on the Highline Canal. She was a serious biker who would often take rides as far south as Castle Rock. She could cover 60 miles in a single workout.

It wasn’t unusual for her to let her parents know what she was doing.

Jenny was very dependable, a good student at East High School and a devoted ballerina. She was excited about entering her senior year in high school that fall. The following week she was to appear in a ballet performance. She was looking forward to the event.

Jenny’s 13-year-old brother Jonathan saw her riding her bicycle at about 10 a.m., only a few minutes after Jenny spoke with her mother. She was riding her bike south on Albion, just after she left her home.

A janitor at Philips Elementary School, 6550 E. 21st Ave., saw her that Monday morning on Monaco Parkway. She was headed north on her brand new black Univega 12-speed bike.

On that day she was to attend a ballet class that started at 4 p.m. and didn’t end until 9 p.m.

It only took her 15 minutes to get home and she was very punctual.

So by 10 p.m. Ann and Larry Douglas were starting to get worried and began looking for her. An hour later Ann Douglas called police.

Jenny’s parents would learn that she never made it to the ballet practice — which was very unusual for her.

The next day her parents organized a search involving a small group of friends and neighbors.

Some people looked at Red Rocks Park, along Cherry Creek in the Highline Canal area. They saw no sign of the girl.

The following day, about 30 members of the Douglas’ church, St. Thomas Episcopal, 2201 Dexter St., met and organized a second search using a hand-drawn map.

Dressed in shorts and jeans, they fanned out in groups of four or five people.

Half went west, scouring the area from Havana and Peoria streets. The other half searched East as far as Gilmore Park. They looked through the grassy, bushy areas on either side of the canal.

They stopped and asked joggers and walkers along the trail whether they had seen “Jenny,” while showing copies of her picture.

Friends and family told reporters at the time that Jenny wasn’t the kind of a girl who would run away from home.

Police canvassed the neighborhood.

Day after day, the search continued.

The principal of Jenny’s high school, John Ahlenius, took a leadership role in the searches that expanded to the foothills in Douglas County.

“We should double the number of local searchers Saturday because a lot of people who want to help are off from work,” Ahlenius had said at the time.

The same Friday evening, Larry and Ann Douglas stood before TV cameras and gave an emotional plea for help finding their daughter.

“We believe she was taken against her will,” Ann Douglas said. “She might have been abducted. There’s nothing to make us believe she would miss her ballet lesson and her pending ballet performance next week. We have not given up hope. There has got to be closure to this, no matter what.”

The Front Range Search and Rescue Unit and U.S. Park Service rangers joined the search. They looked near Genesee, Bergen Park, Morrison and Evergreen.

One Littleton woman came forward and said she believes she spotted Jenny on a bicycle near Broadway and Ridge Road at 1:15 p.m. that Monday.

Volunteers passed out flyers in southeast Denver at the Aurora Mall and in the Douglas’ neighborhood.

The following Sunday, members of Jenny’s church had a service and afterward organized yet another search for Jenny. This time 142 people joined the search.

A $1,500 reward was offered for information leading to Jenny’s discovery.

Psychics offered their impressions to law enforcement. One woman called The Denver Post and told a reporter that she believes someone should look for a small shed, a drainage culvert and possibly a canal control gate.

Other possible witnesses came forward, each offering some clue about the girl’s disappearance.

One woman came forward saying she had seen a blond woman speaking with a man driving a van near the bike path where Jenny was headed on July 16, 1984. When she looked back in the same location the girl and the van were gone.

Months passed with no sign of Jenny.

The family then had to endure speculation just after Christmas of 1984 that one of two bodies of women discovered in successive days in Clear Creek and South Platte River were Jenny’s remains.

Both bodies were nude. Their clothing was found near the creek and the river. One had been in the water about three months.

They were false leads though.

Authorities noted similarities between Jenny’s disappearance and those of two other Colorado girls.